Amazon Axes Whale Sales

Online retailer Amazon.com removed whale meat products from its Japanese website in February after a single day of public protests and a stern rebuke from the U.S. Commissioner to the International Whaling Commission (IWC). A December 2011 study by the Environmental Investigation Agency and Humane Society International had found 147 whale products for sale on www.amazon.jp, a wholly owned subsidiary of the U.S.-based company. The sale of the products contravened the company’s policy not to advertise endangered species. Importation of whale products into many countries would also have been illegal. The company later followed up with a company-wide ban on the sale of “shark, whale, or dolphin.”